Biosphere 2, the $200 million project to make a miniature earth ecosystem that ended in failure in 2002, is for sale. The Biosphere, which sits on a 3-acre site about 20 miles north of Tucson, is a 90-foot-tall structure that rests on a 500-ton stainless steel base. It comes complete with its own rain forest, desert, savanna, marsh, and saltwater ocean. Financed by billionaire Edward Bass, it took four years to build. The basement that contains the pumps and other equipment covers two acres.

The Biosphere is on a 140-acre campus with some seventy buildings. But no one seems to have the slightest idea what you could do with the thing. One building consultant called it “a herd of white elephants.”